Trading methods have evolved from a manually intensive process to a technology enabled, electronic platform. With the advent of electronic trading, a user or trader can be in virtually direct contact with the market, from practically anywhere in the world, performing near real-time transactions.
Electronic trading is generally based on a host exchange, one or more computer networks, and client devices. In general, the host exchange includes one or more centralized computers to form the electronic heart. Its operations typically include maintaining an exchange order book that records unexecuted orders, order matching, providing price and order fill information, and managing and updating a database that records such information. The host exchange is also equipped with an external interface that maintains uninterrupted contact to the client devices and possibly other trading-related systems.
Using client devices, traders link to the host exchange through one or more networks to trade tradable objects. As used herein, the term “tradable object” refers to anything that can be traded with a quantity and/or price. It includes, but is not limited to, all types of traded events, goods and/or financial products, which can include, for example, stocks, options, bonds, futures, currency, and warrants, as well as funds, derivatives and collections of the foregoing, and all types of commodities, such as grains, energy, and metals. The tradable object may be “real,” such as products that are listed by an exchange for trading, or “synthetic,” such as a combination of real products that is created by the user. A tradable object could actually be a combination of other tradable objects, such as a class of tradable objects.
A client device is a computer such as a personal computer, laptop computer, hand-held computer, and so forth that has network access. A network is a group of two or more computers or devices linked together in any fashion, which can be characterized by topology, protocol, and architecture. For example, some market participants may link to the host through a direct network connection such as a T1 or ISDN. Some participants may link to the host exchange through direct network connections and through other common network components such as high-speed servers, routers, and gateways that allow a trader to connect to an electronic exchange. The Internet, a well-known collection of networks and gateways, can be used to establish a connection between the client device and the host exchange. There are many different types of wired and wireless networks and combinations of network types known in the art that can link traders to the host exchange.
Sometimes, on their machines, traders use automated or semi-automated trading tools, collectively hereinafter referred to as automated tools, that automatically or semi-automatically send orders for tradable objects to the exchange. Many different trading tools are usually provided to, among other things, facilitate fast and accurate order entry. For instance, an automated tool might quickly calculate one or more order parameters, such as order price or order quantity, based on market conditions, or some other reference condition, and then automatically send an order with these parameters to an exchange for matching. According to many existing and popular exchanges today, the speed with which an order gets from a trading station to an exchange is crucial, since orders are electronically entered in an exchange order book in the sequence in which they are received at the exchange (a first-in, first-out, commonly referred to as FIFO matching system). Based on this sequence, and the availability of market quantity, orders are filled, with priority given to the first order entered, then the second (next) order entered, and so forth. It should be understood that different matching algorithms, such as, for example, pro rata algorithms, could be used as well.
Many existing trading environments use risk management systems to ensure that a trader does not enter into trades that could potentially result in exceeding a trader's credit limit, or yet some other preset risk parameters, such as a maximum net position that a trader is willing to hold at any given time, for example. While some traders are sole proprietors who risk their own money while trading, others often trade for larger trading groups, such as trading houses. Larger trading groups often use a centralized risk management component that controls and manages global risk as well as risk related to each individual trader. Using such a system, every time a gateway receives an order request from one of the traders in the trading house, the gateway has to communicate with a centralized risk management component to determine if the proposed trade would not take the trader over the risk limits preconfigured for the trader who initiated the order or/and risk limits defined for the trading house. Once the gateway receives a response allowing the proposed trade to be sent to an exchange, the trade may be forwarded to the exchange.
While such risk control systems provide an effective risk control mechanism, they also slow down trading. In the centralized risk control system, when the centralized risk management component receives requests from many gateways, the component puts the requests in its internal queue and processes them in the order they were received, thus, creating unnecessary delays at the gateways that have to wait for a response from the central component. The order delay problems grow exponentially as the trading house uses automated trading tools that may generate hundreds of orders per second, thus, creating a bottleneck of requests at the centralized risk management that consequently slows down the speed with which the orders get to the exchanges. Thus, it is desirable to offer tools that will not only provide the benefits of the centralized risk control systems, but will also solve order latency problems.